THE COAST 55 twenty-foot harvested trees that were two to four feet wide and collectively weighed tons. Ox teams provided the power to pull them. Vaughn, owned by Nezan Favre of Pearlington, widened the original iron tread from a four- inch width to upwards of ten inches so that the wagons could more easily roll and not tip over with the weight of the logs. This invention spread across the Piney Woods, and Favre established a business selling them to mill owners. In the early twentieth century, steam-powered tractors replaced the ox teams and caralogs. The 1850s also witnessed Father Stanislaus Buteaux, a member of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, open St. Stanislaus School. Father Buteaux also established St. Joseph’s Academy and Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church in Bay St. Louis. Today St. Stanislaus is an all-male boarding and day school for grades seven through twelve. It has 365 students with 67 percent boarding. The Mexican-American War affected the Mississippi Coast, particularly Jackson County. The war began on April 25, 1846, when the United States desired to establish the official border of the newly admitted state of Texas as the Rio Grande River rather than the Nueces River claimed by Mexico. As a result, Brigadier General Zachary Taylor became the commander of all United States troops on the Texas frontier. When the call went out for volunteers, Mississippians answered. All in all, sixty-eight regiments served from the state. From Jackson County, the Dauntless Blues under the leadership of Captain Ellis Fairbanks and the Jackson Grays under the direction of Captain George Rogers mustered on June 10, 1846. When the Mexican American War ended on February 2, 1848, Major General David E. Twiggs established Camp Jefferson Davis in East Pascagoula. The purpose of the camp was to reorganize the returning veterans from the Mexican-American War, about 10,000 strong. The United States government chose Pascagoula because New Orleans was overcrowded and Twiggs was familiar with the region. Approximately 3,000 troops passed through the various facilities. Troops were from the 1st through the 5th Infantry Regiments and the 2nd Dragoons Regiment. Officials also established Camp Lawson in Pascagoula. It was an installation to care for the returning wounded. By June 1848, there were 1,800 troops there. Of that number, ninety died over a six-month period. Two miles north, Camp Corine housed the 2nd United States Dragoons and their horses. The government abandoned the camp after November 1848 when it completed all of the administrative work. However, approximately 100 graves remained at Greenwood Island, Camp Lawson. Since the 1970s, some of those burials have been discovered because of natural erosion. On Memorial Day 2010, the remains of six of the soldiers were reinterred with full military honors in a service at Biloxi National Cemetery. They arrived at the National Cemetery on horse-drawn caissons with period- like flags draping their caskets. The University of Southern Mississippi’s Department of Anthropology and Sociology in conjunction with the Jackson County Historical Society, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Biloxi National Cemetery, the Department of Veteran Affairs, the Ocean Springs Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Coastal Environments cooperated in this endeavor, preserving a part of the shared history of Jackson County and the nation. The Coast Prospers After the Mexican-American War and throughout the 1850s, Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson counties developed various industries, and communities grew in the region. Steamboats were the major transportation modes, and their routes resulted in small developments along rivers as the steamboats provided a lifeline of trade and transportation. Settlements along Bluff Creek and John’s Bayou dotted the rivers’edges in Jackson County. Settlers who lived in this northern region of the county were mostly subsistence farmers who also engaged in the production of charcoal, naval stores, and harvested timber. Many early pioneers into the area also brought sheep. The wool industry was important here until after World War I. Schooners with shallow drafts worked their way up to an outpost then called Bluff Creek. Trade with the locals was lucrative. Many of these settlers arrived in Jackson County from the Caro-linas as they sought land opportunities. The ships then, laden with local products, would sail to New Orleans or Mobile to sell the wares. This period gave birth to several communities that are thriving today. Andrew W. Ramsay and Robert Adrian Van Cleave operated a trading post on Paige Bayou in the 1870s some ten miles inland in Jackson County. With the federal government establishing a post office there, the name Van Cleave became synonymous with the Jackson County region. Vancleave today is a growing community with new housing projects, businesses, and schools. Since Hurricane Katrina, many coastal residents moved inland, and from Many immigrants from Ireland also found their way to the Mississippi Coast as a result of the potato famine that affected their country from 1845 to 1852.